I am totally Mac, or at least was until a few days ago when I bought a Windows 8 smart phone. It’s a black Lumia 920, 32 GB internal storage, dual core 1.5 GHz processing power, 8.7 MP camera, and it came with a wireless charger so no daily plug-ins necessary. Wow, yeah, I am so out of date — even my wife and 14 year old daughter have had smart phones for ages, but mine has a bigger screen and according to one YouTube video the screen can be used to bang in nails while barely scratching the Gorilla glass!

Anyways, I don’t have the device yet it is in a courier van somewhere between Auckland and Wellington. When I gets here I have a few apps lined up to try as I attempt to fit the new device into my almost Mac-only workflow.

Here are a few of the apps I am going to try (in alphabetical order):

Audible (audio books)

Bible and ESV bible apps (both excellent on iOS)

Boxfiles (Dropbox — no true Dropbox or Box.net apps available yet, but 7 GB of MS Skydrive is baked in)

Evernote

Facebook (Microsoft app)

Kindle (no Kobo books app so far)

Nextgen reader (RSS)

Rowi (Twitter — no true Twitter app available yet)

Skype

WhatsApp

(Podcasts — dunno yet)

Most of these apps are rated highly by users (and actually show the reviews, unlike the New Zealand app store on iOS).

Missing native apps:

Dropbox

Kiwibank

Logos bible

Twitter

So why did I buy a Windows Phone when I am so much a Mac fanboy and Microsoft critic? Simply because the Lumia is a really nice device, and because of Apple’s exorbitant pricing. The Lumia cost about half that of an iPhone 5c and a third that of a 5s. Time will tell as to whether I will regret not paying the extra Apple tax.